By Gretchen Keiser

The greatest threat to the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr., “might be us, who claim to be disciples of the movement, but we have chosen to be alumni,” said the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss, Jr.

His question to the interfaith audience – “Are we keepers of the dream or killers of the dream?” opened a five-day commemoration of the 52^nd birthday of the slain civil rights leader and the 13^th anniversary of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change.

Dr. Moss, pastor of the Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland and a member of the board of directors of the King Centre, said King’s dream of peace based on justice and justice based on love begins “in the living room of your own household,” in the way family members communicate with each other, and the way children are taught.

“Nonviolence does not begin when Miami explodes. Nonviolence does not begin when 16 children are missing or dead in Atlanta…Nonviolence is not something you import to town when the explosion occurs,” he told the audience at the King Chapel of Morehouse College, Sunday.

“…Those who are committed to non-violence are pilgrims for peace, pilgrims for justice,” he said.

Those who inherited the “exacting responsibility” of keeping the dream of nonviolence alive have fallen over the last decade into the categories of empty admirers, “who sit down every once in awhile and remember what it was like to be in Birmingham,” blind rejectionists who ask what nonviolence has accomplished, and creative analysts, Dr. Moss said.

To the admirers, he asked, whether “we will walk across the street to challenge racism, drugs, classism and elitism.” To the rejectionists, he said “nonviolence changed the Old South into a New South.”

The King Center’s purpose and the theme of the 52^nd birthday commemoration, is “A Charge To Keep In The Eighties – Eliminating Poverty, Racism and violence through Nonviolent Social Change.”

“Our responsibility is to be keepers of the dream, and it is not a neutral responsibility,” Dr. Moss said. “It is an exacting responsibility.”

The interfaith service, followed by three days of policy conferences, ceremonies, and an ecumenical service on Jan. 15, Dr. King’s birthday, drew representatives from dozens of churches throughout Atlanta, including St. Anthony’s, Blessed Sacrament and Our Lady of Lourdes parishes.

Monsignor John F. McDonough delivered greetings from the Archdiocese of Atlanta, speaking on behalf of Archbishop Thomas Donnellan. He compared Dr. King to another man of compassion and simplicity who was able to change Western society from a course of violence to a path of love. Dr. King was, he said, “a 20^th century St. Francis of Assisi.”